Monday, January 16, 2017

New Fiction for 2017 "Frosty the Snowman Owes me Tuition"

(Sinister Snowman created by Rothmir on DeviantArt)

Two days before Christmas, my dad woke me up to tell me I
needed to put on some clothes and meet him outside. I shuffled through the pile
of dirty laundry and put on a shirt, Adidas running pants and sneakers. I
grabbed my coat and beanie off the rack, looked at the red-haloed numbers of
the clock, which read 1:05 AM then hurried up the stairs and outside. My dad
stood with an officer on the porch, and in the distance I could make out the
flashing lights of two cruisers, a Cadillac Escalade parked in the middle of
the road, and my Green Ford Exploder, the Sherman Tank, planted over the curb,
blocking the sidewalk, hood through a city fence and the front wheels lodged in
a small snowdrift. I regretted not putting on socks as I zipped up my non-insulated
parka and pulled my cotton beanie over my ears.

I had parked
the Exploder on December 18th, wheels turned into the curb, where it
should have stayed the entire Christmas Break until I returned to school. The
parking brake had gone out a week earlier, probably the pang I felt during my
plant taxonomy test, or maybe it held and gave out later that night. All I know
is that when I entered the empty stadium parking lot, illuminated in fours by
parking lot lights, my car had rolled forward four feet and rested against the
curb, lonely looking.

I knew it had been going out for
some time. It seemed like everyday I had to push the brake further and further
down for it to stick. This new affirmation, my car four feet beyond the few
spaced out cars, looking like some idiot got high and felt tired of yellow
lines or symmetry, or like the football team jocks played a joke on some
cheerleader and lifted her car and moved it four feet forward to freak her out,
luckily held in place by the high curb, more than bolstered suspicion; it
cemented the facts as they stood, or poorly parked in this case.

The driver
of the Escalade is a good citizen. He could have driven off and left the scene
of my wrecked SUV. My Sherman Tank would have been a Christmas mystery for the
neighborhood that way. People would have walked by or driven by real slow and
pointed, maybe stopped and conversed amongst themselves until the shrewdest of
the bunch pointed out some obscure tire track and deduced that it had been two
drunk drivers—the getaway car hit the Green Explorer, the driver of the
Explorer got out, surveyed the damage (the shrewdy might point to some size ten
footprints at this point), ran around to the passenger side, got his twenty-four
pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon then got in the other car, the car with the dented
front fender, and the two drove off—his entire, poor, shrewd point to rouse an
argument out of the rest of the bunch. A hit and run would have saved the good
citizen from having to retell his poor excuse of an excuse.

“Go on,
tell the young man what happened,” the police officer goaded the driver of the
Escalade while my dad got all my necessary paperwork out of the tank, first by
going to the driver side door, then by walking around to the passenger side
door to get to the glove box, leaving size ten footprints as evidence until the
next thaw. I could tell the three officers were enjoying themselves. Their
moustaches kept covering their mouths when they would pinch down on their lips
to keep from laughing. One officer walked away with my information and sat in
the coziness of his heated cruiser. I stood there freezing my ass and ankles off
waiting for the—you would expect the driver of the escalade to be a kid, but he
was older than me, married, and had two kids of his own—guy to speak up. His
friend, another adult, began to speak, but one of the officer’s gave him one of
those, “Uh,uh,uh,” phrases and held him back by moving the arm that held the
flashlight in his direction. “From the
start. The way you told it to us,” the headcheese demanded. I could tell that
if this guy didn’t repeat what had happened the way the officer heard it and
thought it so funny, that the officer would cut in as a late-night host might,
to get the wanted response. He began with some hesitancy in his voice.

“We turned
the corner up by the stop sign and we were checking out the house across the
street.”

“Casing the joint,” the second in charge said, adding the
proper lingo to the retelling.

“As I said, we were…casing the joint, so I drove faster than
I usually would on this street.” Head cheese cut in. I wondered if he would let
the guy tell the damn story. “Why were you casing the joint? You can’t just say
you were casing a joint without telling us why this house in particular.”

“So,” he paused again then I could see the strain on his
face give way, cheeks relaxed, jawbone retracted, mouth opened a little. “A
couple groups of friends decided to play a game called ‘Steal Frosty the
Snowman.’ The rules of the game are that you have to place Frosty,” he pointed
to the lighted up figure on my neighbor’s front porch, “where all the other married
couples can see him.” (Is this what marriage does to men? They try to steal a
snowman from other people’s yards.) “Everyone tries to steal the snowman
without getting caught. If they catch you, you are out of the game, but whoever
has Frosty the Snowman on Christmas-Eve night wins the game. All the other
couples have to buy the winning couple a dinner.”

“And this guy,” the second in charge pointed to the
accomplice. “He ain’t your wife. Was he along for the joyride?”

“He’s just a friend. He’s not in the game. I brought him
along so he could look at the house while I drove by without stopping. That way
they wouldn’t think something was up.”

“Fine set of eyes he turned out to be,” head cheese laughed.

“So how did you hit my Explorer?” I asked. The two officers
chuckled behind the scene.

“Well, I was going kind of fast like I was saying, and it is
pretty dark out here with no streetlights, and both of us spotted Frosty, and I
guess I took my eyes off the road because the next thing I know, I plowed into
the back of your car and knocked it pretty good.”

The
officers couldn’t contain themselves any longer. By now all three stood behind
the guy and laughed loud. The one officer handed me my insurance card back and gave
me a card with the guy’s insurance information, and we exchanged numbers and
figured the whole scene had ended for the night. I went back to bed. The red
light glowed 2:05 AM.

II

The doorbell clamored, and once again I was putting on a
shirt, Adidas running pants, balled up socks this time and sneakers. I looked
at the clock. The red light read 7:05 AM. “Doesn’t anyone answer the damn
door,” I mumbled. I ran up the steps, could hear my dad taking a bath, the
water coughing loudly through the pipes in the wall and gushing into the tub. I
opened the door and two new or different officers of the law, and a woman with
CSI embroidered on her fleece jacket, greeted me. “We are here to investigate a
wreck that we have reason to believe occurred this morning,” one of the
officers said as he nosily inspected the inside of our entryway. The woman
walked down the porch and began looking at the tire tread left in the snow and
leading to the garage. Just beyond her, my wrecked Exploder seemed an obvious
giveaway. I pointed to the car, the two officers following my finger, and told
them that the accident happened last night, and had already been taken up with
the local authorities. “Oh that,” said the same officer, and turned his head.

“We were wondering what happened. But that isn’t what we are
here for. Is your brother in the house by chance?” I had no idea what they
would want with my brother. True, the same two officers were here on about a
weekly basis trying to arrest my brother for some crime or another. But he had
taken his usual dose of ten Ambien last night, and I knew he would be asleep on
the couch downstairs, the TV on with the volume rather high and a Copenhagen
Longcut would be to the left side of his mouth with possible brown saliva
running down his cheek on to his throat. My mom came out in her bathrobe,
rubbing her eyes and seeming nonplussed by the sight of the two officers.

“He’s
downstairs asleep,” I told them.

“Would you
go get him? We would just like to ask him a few questions,” the other officer
said.

“What did he do this time?” my mom asked without even
noticing she already found her own flesh guilty.

“We have
reason to believe he was involved in an accident about twenty minutes ago,” the
officer said without giving specifics. I could hear my mom’s diatribe as I
walked downstairs and woke Adam up. “It’s the police, get up.”

“What do they want? I was sleeping.” He got up slowly and
put on his pants, tightened the belt on his pelvic bone then threw on the shirt
he had taken off to go to bed.

“They think you were involved in some kind of accident,” I
said.

“I’ve been sleeping. I don’t even own a car.”

I know,” I said, “but you better explain that to them.”

Myriad thoughts ran through my
head. Adam does strange things when he takes Ambien. His favorite thing to do
is to play CSI, the show, not the real thing like the woman did outside. Many a
nights I would find him asleep outside in the summer, flashlight still on and
beaming in odd fashion through the grass, casting jungle-like scenery for moths
on the white-vinyl fence. “I knew it would happen sooner or later,” my mom
confirmed her suspicion to the two officers. My dad stood next to her in his
bathrobe, flesh still singed red on his neck from the too-hot water he always
bathed in, asking what happened.

The officers didn’t say. They just
asked Adam if he had been driving a black Chevy SUV recently. Adam looked at
them with his angry red eyes that needed more sleep. “No. Why the hell would I
be driving my mom’s car?” he asked.

“Well,” said the officer who seemed
to be the spokesman, conferring with the CSI lady who had returned to the front
door, “we can match the prints of your tires to an accident that happened up
the road about one block.” No one questioned the fact that the officer’s choice
of words were “yours (meaning Adam’s)” rather than “the car’s.”

“I’ve been sleeping, asshole. How would
I have driven a car?” my brother responded. The officer took the sentences,
processed them in his mind, probably drew a picture of prior near convictions,
near arrests, and continued. “Were you driving the car or not?” the officer
said in an insulting tone.

“No. I was sleeping,” my brother said with a little more
vehemence than his first statement.

“What happened?” my mother demanded. The officer turned to
his partner then to the CSI lady and then back to us. “Seems that someone saw a
black SUV matching the description of your car drive over a curb, narrowly pass
between two pine trees and through a wooden fence, back up after this was done,
hit the curb twice on the next street and then headed towards your home.” My
mom stood incredulous, and blaming. “Where are my keys, Adam?” she asked my
criminal brother.

“I don’t have your damn keys. I tell you I was sleeping.” My
mom took leave of us and went to the garage to check her car for damage on the
outside and information on the inside. The can of Diet Dr. Pepper, still
sweating cold beads of moist in the cup holder, told her all she needed to
know.

My dad loves Diet Dr. Pepper. He
drinks six of them a day. They are his only intake of water. My mom came back
in but said nothing more than “Where are my keys?” I checked the counter where
they usually lie. Not there. My dad came back to the entryway holding the keys
like a used condom. “They were in my jeans,” he said, perplexed and trying to figure
out how they got there. “Do you take Ambien, by chance,” the officer asked.

Does my dad take Ambien? He is
retired now, but for the last twenty years has gone to bed at 8 PM and woken up
at 2 or 3 AM to drive to Salt Lake City where he works. He avoided all traffic
and was able to be home by 3 PM to accomplish his woodworking (my mother always
had him making some sort of furniture) for a few hours then sit down and watch
Jeopardy at 7:30 PM. Under “Creature of Habit,” in the dictionary is a picture
of my dad. Also check, “Aroma of Pine Sawdust,” he is there as well. Last
night’s accident broke him from a twenty year habit.

Turns out my dad couldn’t get back
to sleep, returning to his bed after the accident. He swallowed a second Ambien
for the first time in a twenty-year pattern of one. He woke up at 5:30 AM,
needed a cold 12 oz. Diet Dr. Pepper in a can (the fridge was loaded with
plastic 20 ounce bottles). He probably wanted to hear the vaunted sound of
refreshment when a ring tab breaks the aluminum top open. He grabbed the keys
from their usual spot and drove to Maverick and purchased one 12 oz. Diet Dr.
Pepper. He must have opened it in the car, sipped from it then put it in the
can holder where it would have remained a mystery had it not been the key piece
of evidence. On the way home he must have been in a state of waking dream
because he doesn’t remember that the roads were slick, that a block away from
home he skidded sideways then made a bee-line over the curb, between two blue
spruces and plowed through an oak board fence, reversed it like a road racer,
split the trees again, hopped the curb, skidded straight, headed home hitting
the sidewalls of the Suburban against the curb at 523 N 5400 S where two
onlookers watched, turned the SUV into the driveway, entered the already open
garage, closed it on his way inside, took off his pants and entered the realm
of a twenty year routine by taking his morning bath.

All of this was embarrassingly
reiterated to him when at church the two onlookers asked him if he enjoyed his
joyride that morning. He said he didn’t remember and walked away. “I must have
done it,” my dad exclaimed to the officer. “I’m guilty. Arrest me.” My dad has
never knowingly broken a law. The officer told him to calm down. Assured him
that he would ticket him, but that he could fight it in court and that my dad
had better go talk to the owner of the fence and work out something. My dad
took the pink citation from the officer’s hand.

When my dad went to court and his
case was called, he stood before the judge and exclaimed again, “I’m guilty. I
did it.” The judge told him to say no more and listen to his defender. The
prosecutor told the judge that the case had been settled out of court, and that
he would like to dismiss the case. My dad didn’t like the outcome albeit it
affirmed to him he would not be getting a ticket. He somehow felt cheated
because he had committed a crime and would have liked to pay the penalty.

The retelling of this story is
simply (or not so simply) to show that all of this happened because my parking
brake went out, which caused me to park the Exploder on the street with the
wheels turned into the curb rather than on the steep driveway, the placement of
the Exploder caused an over anxious young man who was casing the joint across
the street from our house to hit it, which caused my dad to wake early, which
in turn, caused my dad to take one more Ambien than usual, which awakened a
desire in my dad to purchase a cold, 12 oz. can of Diet Dr. Pepper, which caused
him to be dream-wakened driving on slick roads, which aided my dad in driving
between two blue spruce trees and through an oak section of picket fence, and
in turn receive a ticket for driving under the influence of Ambien.

Other notable consequences of the
cause and effect sequence is that my brother Adam was once more accused by
officer and mother of being guilty of a crime, my semester that had been paid
for by taking out a loan against the Exploder’s whopping 5,000 dollar Blue Book
value had no way to be repaid, I walked a mile and a half to school each cold,
late winter and early spring morning, was dropped off at an Ogden exit with my
laundry basket in hand and had to run to the adjacent road where my dad waited
to pick me up, consequently my roommate who lived further down the road had to
time the exit and entrance of the freeway perfectly so as to be stopped at the
red light so I could jump out; otherwise, we had to turn right, pull over to
drop me off, and he had to drive a hundred yards west and make an illegal
U-turn to get back in the exit lane for the freeway. I lost five pounds from
walking so much, had to purchase a two-hundred dollar North Face down jacket
and a wool beanie for my ears, our neighbor purchased a vinyl fence and never
talked to my dad again. More consequences could be noted, but this suffices.

One thing remains. And that is the
guilt that Frosty the Snowman plays in all of this. He thought I would let him
get away with this, but it needs mention that Frosty the Snowman, first
appeared as a Gene Autry song, after the success of Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer. Frosty, however could be found in the Middle Ages with a much darker
side. These people used three rings or circles to create the snowman, and it is
noted that a reference to the crucifixion of Christ by the Illuminati can be
found in this image. Frosty is a product of the savior, which I mention, was
again popularized by Gene Autry’s song, which made the snowman famous, which helped
Frosty become a holiday tradition, which pagan or not has become the status quo
of happy holiday goers for quite some years (along with lights, Christmas
trees, presents, etc.), so had it not been for the birth of Jesus, the kindling
of folklore and the commercialization of Christmas, Frosty would not have been
in my neighbor’s yard, the young man would not have been casing the joint, my
Exploder would not have been ran into, and my dad would have never had his
twenty-year routine disrupted: